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‘In my room,’ Marcus said beside her. ‘Will everyone please go?’ he added, raising his voice to somewhere just short of a parade ground bellow.
‘Marcus, my dear, it is hardly seemly. Nell should be in her own room and Miss Price and I will see to her.’ Lady Narborough sounded uncharacteristically flustered.
‘Go and look after Father, Mama,’ Marcus said firmly. ‘He got cold and has probably overexerted himself.’
‘Oh, yes, of course. But Miss Price—’ Nell heard her voice die away down the corridor, still protesting faintly.
‘Thank you, Diana, if you could just take the staff with you. The fire is lit, the tub is filled.’ With ruthless efficiency, Marcus cleared the room and came back to Nell. ‘Now then, let’s get you out of those wet clothes.’ He started to peel back the blankets.
‘And you,’ Nell protested, trying to pull herself together and be practical and sensible, and just feeling as though all she wanted was to melt into Marc’s arms and never to let go. ‘You must change.’
‘I have,’ he said, throwing the last damp blanket aside, and she saw he was wearing a heavy silk dressing gown over loose trousers and a shirt.
‘Now, out of these clothes.’ He swore under his breath as the sodden fastenings refused to cooperate, picked up some scissors from a side table and ruthlessly cut everything off her.
‘Marcus!’
‘My God, you are cold right through,’ he said, ignoring her flustered efforts to shield her white, goose-pimpled body. ‘Into the bath with you.’
‘Marcus,’ she tried again as he lowered her into the warm water. ‘Your mother, Miss Price—everyone knows I am in here with you! Oh, oh that is wonderful.’ The blissful warmth distracted her for a moment. ‘What are they going to think?’
He rolled up his sleeves, knelt by the tub and began to wash her, his big hands sure and gentle. ‘They will think that I love you and don’t want anyone else looking after you.’
‘Yes, but Lady Narborough—’
‘Hush.’ He silenced her by the simple expedient of kissing her, his mouth gentling over hers until she stopped trying to talk and simply relaxed back against the towel he had draped around the rim of the tub.
‘Sleepy,’ she heard herself murmur as he freed her lips. ‘So sleepy.’
‘You are warm now, it is safe to sleep. To bed with you, Nell.’
She was vaguely aware of being lifted, of the embrace of soft linen and strong arms, then sound and feeling faded away and she slept, knowing only that she was safe.
Nell woke slowly in a strange bed. The room was unlit except for the cool wash of moonlight turning everything stark black and silver. In the grate the fire burned low, a dull, deep red that told her she had slept for hours. The curtains must be open, she reasoned, blinking her eyes into focus as she turned her cheek on the pillow. Marcus. She could smell his cologne, that faint tang of citrus, and beneath it the scent of his skin. She was in his bed. Now she recognised the room from that night when she had slept there chastely in his arms.
Her reaching hand found no other body in the bed, only a dip in the mattress beside her and a faint residual warmth. He had been there, she thought, looking after her through the night. She lay still for a while, letting the events of the day wash over her, absorbing them, hearing again Marc’s voice. I love you, he had said as he had fired the shot that freed her, his aim as true as his heart, she thought, her own heart catching in her breast.
She sat up, and found she was wearing a nightgown, even though she had no recollection of putting one on. ‘Marc?’ He was standing by the window looking out.
‘Are you all right?’ He turned and strode to the bedside, dropping whatever he had been holding onto the covers. ‘Were you dreaming? A nightmare?’
‘No.’ She let him take her hands, cupping them in his as though to reassure himself that she was warm. ‘I was thinking of you, how you saved me.’
‘I have never been more afraid in my life,’ he admitted, sitting down beside her. ‘I saw the knife at your throat, the blood—’
‘His blood, my knife,’ Nell said, daring to boast a little. ‘But you shot true.’
‘One of the few things Hal will admit I do better than he can,’ he confessed. ‘Why did you do it, Nell? Why did you go out alone to meet him?’
‘Because I felt responsible. I am sorry. I know I deceived you, I know I asked for your trust and then betrayed it.’
‘No, never that. I never thought that, Nell. I was angry that you had put yourself in danger, but my trust in you never failed.’
Comforted, immeasurably relieved, she pushed the pillows up and sat so they were shoulder to shoulder, Marc’s body a comforting bulwark. ‘I brought the first rope to you. I am my father’s daughter. I had to go.’
‘And I am my father’s son,’ Marc said dryly. ‘But you are no more responsible for your father’s actions than I am for mine, Nell.’
‘I know. And you know I understand why your father did what he did. But if Papa was innocent, then there is still a murderer and a traitor at large.’
